Tag Archives: Sue Mason

The award, established in 1998 and named for the talented, prolific artist Bill Rotsler (1926-1997), is for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community. The winner receives a plaque and an honorarium of US$300.

Fletcher’s drawings have been part of Rune and many other amateur publications for decades. By 1976, when he co-founded Vootie, “the Fanzine of the Funny-Animal Liberation Front,” he had long been known particularly for anthropomorphic cartoons.

He has drawn on spirit-duplicator masters, mimeograph stencils, and in today’s digital media, sometimes with fantastic settings, or remarkable because the setting is all that is not fantastic, like his invented Spontoon Island where it always seems to be 1937.

In 1966, Fletcher co-founded the Minnesota Science Fiction Society (Minn-StF). In 1979 Fletcher and his wife Linda Lounsbury were the Down Under Fan Fund delegates. They attended the Australia national SF convention, held that year in Sydney. Upon their return they presented a slide-show at cons in North America.

Science Fiction Five-Yearly, a fanzine published on time for sixty years, carried the long-running serial !Nissassa by Nalrah Nosille (backward only in that sense), with recent chapters illustrated by Fletcher.

The Rotsler winner is announced each year at Loscon, held during the United States Thanksgiving-holiday weekend. Loscon XLV, 23-25 November 2018 at the Los Angeles International Airport Marriott Hotel, had a display in the Art Show of work by every Rotsler winner.

Loscon is sponsored by the non-profit L.A. Science Fantasy Society, oldest SF club in the world. The Rotsler is sponsored by the non-profit Southern California Institute for Fan Interests. The current Rotsler judges are Mike Glyer, John Hertz (since 2003), and Sue Mason (since 2015).

By John Hertz: Andrew Porter shot these fine photos of the Rotsler Award exhibit at the 76th World Science Fiction Convention.

Some Worldcons have nicknames. This year’s Worldcon was just “Worldcon 76” .

In fact I know people whose nickname is “Nick”. Maybe you do too.

I digress.

The Rotsler is for long-time wonder-working with graphic art in amateur publications of the science fiction community. The current judges are Sue Mason, Mike Glyer, and me. It’s named for Bill Rotsler (1926-1997), a long-time wonder-worker. It’s ordinarily announced at Loscon.

We try to put up an exhibit at the Worldcon showing sample work by all the winners to date. The exhibits have been curated by me, recently with first-rate layout and electronics help from Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink.

In building the exhibit I try to choose images that are both representative of the artist, and visually interesting for themselves. If you happen to know the context, or some of the in-jokes, that might be more fun, but (if I do it right) you needn’t. The exhibit is designed (I hope) so you can look at it as you go by, or stop and study.

You’ll see from Brother Porter’s photos that winners each have a section, with their name and year at the top. Also there’s a section about fanzines, and one about Brother Rotsler and the Award. Many of the images appeared in fanzines. There are a few other things, like cards from Bruce Pelz’ Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck.

The Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a California non-profit corporation (yes, its initials spell SCIFI – pronounced “skiffy”) – and, because this is fandom, where every day is Anything Can Happen Day, SCIFI the sponsor of the Award is not the sponsor of Loscon where it’s announced. We are large, we contain multitudes.

Some but by no means all fanart (which, like “fanwriting”, I make one word; a loudspeaker is not the same as a speaker who is loud, a boyfriend or girlfriend is not the same as a boy or girl who is a friend) can be found in Electronicland; if you live there, Bill Burns’ Website eFanzines.com is worth a look. As to the rest, seek and ye shall find. If you have nothing better to do (and if you have, do that), you can always write to me, 236 S. Coronado St., No. 409, Los Angeles, CA 90057, U.S.A.

Many notable fanzine artists have banded together to present exhibits of their finest work at The Zine Artists, where they hope others soon will join them.

Here are high-resolution scans of great cover art unimpaired by cheap paper repro, faneds’ peculiar choices of colored paper, or massive blots of zine title typography. Pristine! At last, no barriers between the artist and the audience.

Already available are dozens and dozens of examples of the funny and beautiful work by —

The first thing you will notice is how terribly incomplete the list of artists is. “Where are Jeanne Gomoll,” you may ask, or “Jack Wiedenbeck, Randy Bathurst, or David Vereschagin?” The answer is that it will take time to track these artists down and contact them.

Taral has also penned a detailed history of the evolution of fanzine art – including his lament about the current state of affairs:

Then, of course, came the digital age, which changed everything. No longer was it necessary to print anything at all to publish a fanzine. Fan editors could manipulate words and images directly on the screen, and distribute them in whatever file format was convenient. It was no longer necessary to limit illustrations in any way. Colour became almost mandatory. Photographs were a breeze. Any image that was already digitized was fair game to import into your document. You could search the entire globe, through the Internet, for the exact image you wanted. In effect, fanartists became redundant.

The golden age of fanzine art represented here never really seems to have been accompanied by a golden age of appreciation for the artists. In every era there have been justifiable complaints that the artists did not receive enough egoboo to “sustain life as we know it.” So take advantage of this chance to leave an appreciative comment in The Zine Artists chat section!

The late Terry Pratchett enjoyed a great reputation as a fan-friendly pro who sometimes drew inspiration from those he talked to at cons, while Tuckerizing others for charity.

Tuckerization — using a person’s real name in a science fiction story as an in-joke – is derived from Wilson Tucker, the author who made the practice famous.

Tom Meserole recalls, “My wife was Tuckerized in the novel Night Watch as ‘Lady Roberta Meserole, international woman of mystery, but her friends call her Bobbi.’ I also got a passing mention in the same novel.” Tom’s name was given to her cat.

Tom won the Tuckerization rights at a charity auction during a St. Louis convention where Pratchett was a guest of honor. People like to joke that the auction was for one Tuckerization but Terry threw in the cat for free….

Doctor Christopher Pagel and his wife Julia, real-life animal experts and owners of a large feral cat sanctuary, appear as themselves in The Long War

Follett paid £2,200 to charity for his Discworld appearance in Night Watch, although as Dave Langford writes in Starcombing —

He publicly expressed hopes that he’d appear as a giant. Instead, Terry Pratchett introduced the sinister Doctor Follett, past head of the Assassins’ Guild (‘Is that his own hair?’). Type-casting, no doubt.

Other fans are certain (with good reason) they made anonymous appearances in Pratchett’s work.

Perdita Nit

“Magrat Garlick wears my jewelry,” says Sue Mason. “Terry was impressed at breakfast at some convention when I turned up with full silver jewelry, no makeup, no hair do, but full jewelry and he dragged me the length of an Eastercon dealer room to show me the Clarecraft Perdita Nit, as apparently he had described me to the sculptor and they had done a splendid job.”

“Some of the antics by the post grads in the high energy magic department are apparently based on a late night slightly alcohol fueled discussion Terry, I and a couple if others had about games we played with radars, missile systems and other electronics,” says Mike Rennie. “Terry used to make toast on resistor arrays for example.”

At Loscon 41 over Thanksgiving Weekend in November there was a display in the Art Show of cartoons and illos by Rotsler Award winners. One of the panels was devoted to the award’s history, and the other to work by its 2014 winner Sue Mason.

The display was curated by John Hertz. Thanks to Kenn Bates for these photographs.

Sue Mason from the United Kingdom has won the 2014 Rotsler Award, given for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community. Established in 1998, the award carries an honorarium of US$300.

Mason is a widely-published pen-and-ink artist who is particularly well-known for her activity in the British fanzine Plokta. Her illustrations are whimsical, humorous and richly-detailed.

She is also accomplished at pyrography, the process of producing designs by burning them onto a surface, generally wood, leather or paper.

Mason is a two-time winner of the Best Fan Artist Hugo. She has won the Nova Award for Best Fan Artist seven times.

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation, hosts of the 2006 Worldcon. The award is named for the late Bill Rotsler, the talented and prolific fanartist. Claire Brialey, Mike Glyer, and John Hertz served as this year’s judges.

The award was formally announced on Saturday, November 29, 2014 at Loscon 41. An exhibit honoring Mason’s work was displayed in the Art Show.